Inspire

Change your brand … Building brands about people not products, about making life better.

Brands are about making people’s lives better. About me not you, what people want and aspire to, rather than companies and products. Brands are enriching and enabling, giving people the confidence, and helping them, to achieve more. They can reach into new spaces because they mean more. They are platforms that bring peope together inside and out, engaging them in bigger ideas, collaborative and evolving over time.

From brands as logos and slogans … to brands that capture bigger ideas

From brands about companies and products … to brands about people and aspirations

From brands that drives sales … to brands as platforms for collaboration

Related Gamechangers

The mission of the LVMH Group is to represent the most refined qualities of Western "Art de Vivre"​ around the world. Since its creation in 1987, LVMH has comprised a unique portfolio of over 70 prestigious brands.

Say goodbye to standard sizes and hello to custom-fit clothes. The free ZOZOSUIT lets you capture a 3D measurement of your unique body from home. Once you’ve measured, you can order affordable ZOZO clothing that is made according to your unique measurements and delivered directly to your door.

Can ice cream ever be healthy? Halo Top Creamery is attracting more ice cream lovers with a promise of lower calories and less guilt. Time magazine named it one of the best inventions of the year. Over the summer of 2017, it also became the best-selling ice cream in America, beating big names like Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs.

Agua Bendita makes super-luxury handmade bikinis, inspired by their Colombian roots: gorgeous, sophisticated, and alive with colour and innovative fabrics. Catalina Álvarez and Mariana Hinestroza founded the brand whilst studying fashion, inspired by the scraps of brightly coloured fabrics discarded by Catalina's father's clothing factory. Nearly a decade later, their suits are seen in stores around the world and on celebrities on the beaches of the world. What makes them particularly special are the contributions of Colombian artisans, 700 single mothers with a passion for making beautiful clothes.

Germany's favourite coffee brand, has spread its retail concept across the world, offering everything from flowers to mobile phones, with a constantly changing range. Pop in for a coffee, and to see what's new!

James Watt and Martin Dickie were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominated the UK beer market. Sat in their local Scottish pub, they decided the best option was to brew our own. In April 2007 BrewDog was born.

& Other Stories headquarters in Stockholm are surprisingly low-key. Located on a quiet street in a residential part of the city, it's a far cry from the vision of ultra-hip Swedish cool that H&M and its other brands seek to project on the world. Unlike Zara's portfolio of fashion brands that target different ages and attitudes, H&M's portfolio is more a collection of different lifestyle concepts. More interesting, and distinctive.

The concept was simple: Produce the best mattress possible at an affordable price, sell a single model, and deliver it quickly, for free, with a 100-day trial period. It worked: Casper had sales of $1 million in its first month. The company has since raised $70 million in venture capital, grown to 120 employees, and hit $100 million in cumulative sales in its first 2 years.

Momondo was founded in Denmark in 2006 and is headquartered in Copenhagen. As of 2016, the company has more than 200 employees from more than 30 nationalities. When Momondo was first launched in September 2006, it was a flight search engine only. It's inspirational travel blog was launched in 2007. In the same year, the company launched a series of city guides called Momondo places. Momondo is perhaps most famous for its DNA Journey advertising epic that made people rethink about their connectedness in today's world.

"Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: glasses are too expensive. We were students when one of us lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. The cost of replacing them was so high that he spent the first semester of grad school without them, squinting and complaining. (We don’t recommend this.) The rest of us had similar experiences, and we were amazed at how hard it was to find a pair of great frames that didn’t leave our wallets bare. Where were the options?"

You might credit George Clooney with much of Nespresso’s brand appeal. But the money is in the pods. Whilst the coffee machines are sold at minimal prices, it is the addiction – or subscription – to the refills that drives profits.

Red Bull changed the game of energy drinks. But it is much more than a drink, it’s a brand that reflects an attitude to life, and can therefore do more. In fact it has become a media company, with some of the world’s most extreme physical events, amplified as digital content. Not as a promotion for its drinks, but as the core business, with drinks on the side.

Marcus Goldman was a German banker, businessman, and financier. He was born in Trappstadt, Bavaria and immigrated to the United States in 1848. He was the founder of Goldman Sachs, which has since become one of the world's largest investment banks. However the bank has started to change its own game, entering the consumer market with "Marcus by Goldman Sachs".

One Medical Group challenges the notion that delivering high-quality, accessible health care is either unachievable or prohibitively expensive. In fact, we’re working to prove that just the opposite is possible — a system where quality care is affordable and available to everyone. To bring this vision to life, we rely on people-centered design, smart application of technology, and a team of talented primary care providers who have the time and tools to make the right decisions. The integration of these elements allows us to offer a seamless experience that not only saves our patients time and money but also leads to better health outcomes and happier lives.

Parkrun is a beautifully simple concept: turn up every Saturday and run 5km, or if you’re a junior: 2km every Sunday. Over a million people, every week. In Australia, in Russia, in South Africa. Across the world. It doesn’t matter how fast you go. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. What matters is taking part. It's free, simple and for everyone.

Riot Games – League of Legends is reinventing the world of gaming, and the world of sport.

In a world where real sports are challenged by online gaming, attention spans fall from a 2 hour movie to a 10 second snapchat, lying in your bedroom but still seeking the thrill of the partisan crowd ... Riot Games is the answer to your millennial prayers. Each game demands 30 to 60 minutes of players' undivided attention. The average player spends 30 hours a month on the game ... that's three billion player-hours each month

We live in a world of glass – from tablets to televisions, high rise buildings to Google Glass. But glass breaks. Not if its made for gorillas. Corning has turned itself into an ingredient brand that even adds value to Apple.

Cycling is a sport of connisseurs. They love their coffee, in France they love their pastis, and they love their bikes and gear. Riding in the heart of a Sunday morning pelaton is as much social as physical, and so Rapha designed to create premium cycling gear, and coffee shops – or Cycle Clubs – where enthusiasts can meet.

A stock market flotation was the catalyst for Sonae to diversify its business into many new categories. Innovation lies at the heart of Sonae's vision for improving life. Most important platform for this is Sonae's Continente retail brand which has recently extended across Europe, and also take its own-label brands into other retailers in order to go further faster.

The East India Company was the world's first multinational company, dominating world trade for centuries. It made a wide range of elusive, exclusive and exotic ingredients familiar, affordable and available to the world; ingredients which today form part of our daily and national cuisines. Today it continues to develop and market unique and innovative products that breathe life into the history of the brand.

“During my lifetime I have always nurtured a dream: useful work to achieve an important goal. I have always felt that business profit alone was not enough to fulfil my dream and a higher purpose was to be found”.

Vicky Tsai was sitting at her Merrill Lynch analyst desk watching 9/11 as it happened. It made her realise that there must be a better world. She started to explore the world, culture, and spirituality. She was taken by Asian culture, and in particularly the secrets of the Japanese geisha. Tatcha was born to share the geisha's wisdom with modern women everywhere, and to further the belief that true beauty begins with the heart and the mind.

Kate Unsworth's favourite words are banana and martini. She is a maths grad and part-time model, who has embraced a millennial mindset for business, and also a love of technologies that are thoughtful, human and fashionable.

Pixar creates the world’s most loved movies. Creating animations is relatively slow and costly, but with a focus on character building and incredible storytelling, the brand has created hit after hit. It’s creative process – based around ideas and stories – is a great model for any type of brand building and communication.

Le Pain stands out in a cookie-cutter world of standard formats as authentic and sustainable, human and communal. Whilst the world becomes anglicised, it’s great to see a little French on our streets, albeit Belgian.

Tesla is the fastest, sexiest, most-hyped car of its generation. It can drive 1000 km on a solar powered battery, with zero carbon emissions, whilst also becoming the must-have luxury accessory in Hollywood.

Kiwi fruit are a great example of market creation. Zespri, owned by New Zealand growers, shows how to build premium brands that increase the market size, whilst also capturing disproportionate value, and what might otherwise be a commodity market.

The space race is on, to provide regular affordable flights for business, research and tourism. And whilst the development has not been without problems, Virgin’s vision, determination and spacecraft design, promises to go where others haven't, or at least from London to Sydney in one hour.

Focusing on designing the very best apparel for serious runners and triathletes, Ashmei refuses to compromise. Combining the best fabric and production from around the globe, focusing on niche audiences who are prepared to pay more for their passion, outplays the mainstream brands.

Umpqua reimagined the banking experience around customers, inspired by parallels such as Gap and Starbucks. A passionate focus on people and service has created a digitally-enabled physical experience like no other.

Curation is a key role for retailer, editing and guiding in a world of infinite choice. Making sustainability positive, being better rather than less bad, being authentic and natural, softer or brighter.